Is there a Dark Side to Exchange Traded Funds?

An Information Perspective
by
Doron Israeli, Charles M. C. Lee, and Suhas A. Sridharan**

January 13, 2017

Review of Accounting Studies, Forthcoming

Abstract
We examine whether an increase in ETF ownership is accompanied by a decline in pricing
efficiency for the underlying component securities. Our tests show an increase in ETF ownership
is associated with: (1) higher trading costs (bid-ask spreads and market liquidity); (2) an increase
in stock return synchronicity; (3) a decline in future earnings response coefficients; and (4) a
decline in the number of analysts covering the firm. Collectively, our findings support the view
that increased ETF ownership can lead to higher trading costs and lower benefits from information
acquisition. This combination results in less informative security prices for the underlying firms.

JEL Classifications: G11, G14, M41

Keywords: Exchange traded funds (ETFs); Uninformed and informed traders; Costly
information; Trading costs; Market pricing efficiency; Informative prices.

**
Israeli (israelid@idc.ac.il) is at the Arison School of Business, the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel;
Lee (clee8@stanford.edu) is at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and Sridharan
(sridharan@emory.edu; 404-727-9431) is at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322).
We gratefully acknowledge research assistance from Woo Young Park and Padmasini Venkatachari. We thank Inessa
Liskovich and Harrison Hong for kindly providing us with their data on Russell 2000 reconstitutions. We are grateful
for helpful suggestions and comments from Russell Lundholm (Editor), Ira Yeung (Discussant), an anonymous
referee, Will Cong, Larry Glosten, Ananth Madhavan, Ed Watts, Frank Zhang, as well as seminar participants at
Emory University, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Tel Aviv University, UCLA, the University of Iowa, Duke
University, and Harvard University (IMO Conference 2016).
 I. Introduction

Traditional noisy rational expectations models with costly information feature agents who
expend resources to become informed. These informed agents earn a return on their information
acquisition efforts by trading with the uninformed, and as they do so, the information they
possess is incorporated into prices.1 In many of these models, the supply of uninformed traders
adjusts to provide just sufficient reward for costly efforts in information acquisition and
processing. The equilibrium between cost constraints faced by informed traders and gains from
trading against the uninformed is reflected in the level of informational efficiency of security
prices in the market. The inherent tension between the efficiency with which firm-specific
information is incorporated into stock prices, and the incentives needed to acquire that
information and disseminate it, is central to understanding the informational role of security
prices (e.g., Hayek 1945, Grossman 1989).

This paper employs exchange-traded fund (ETF) ownership data to examine the economic
linkages between the market for firm-specific information, the market for individual securities,
and the role of uninformed traders. Specifically, we investigate whether an increase in ETF
ownership is associated with a decline in the informational efficiency (or pricing efficiency) of
the individual component securities underlying the fund.2 In frictionless markets, a firms
ownership structure should have little to do with the informational efficiency of its share price.
However, as we argue below, market frictions related to information acquisition costs can cause
ownership by ETFs to be a significant economic event, with direct consequences for the
informational efficiency of the underlying securities.

Our central conjecture is that ETF ownership can influence a stocks informational efficiency
through its impact on the number of underlying shares available for trading to individual
investors and the supply of uninformed traders willing to trade these securities. As ETF

1
See for example, Grossman and Stiglitz (1980), Hellwig (1980), Diamond and Verrecchia (1981), Verrecchia
(1982), Admati (1985), and Kyle (1985, 1989).
2
We use the terms pricing efficiency and informational efficiency interchangeably. Both terms refer to the
speed and efficiency with which price incorporates new information. Empirically, we use several proxies to
measure informational efficiency, including price synchronicity (SYNCH), future earnings response coefficients
(FERC), and the number of analysts covering a firm (ANALYST).

1
ownership grows, an increasing proportion of the outstanding shares for the underlying security
becomes locked up (held in trust) by the fund sponsor. Although these shares are available for
trade as part of a basket transaction at the ETF-level, they are no longer available to traders who
wish to transact on firm-specific information. Even more importantly, ETFs offer an attractive
alternative investment vehicle for uninformed (or noise) traders who would otherwise trade the
underlying component securities.3 As ETF ownership increases, some uninformed traders in the
underlying securities migrate toward the ETF market. Over time, this migration creates a steady
siphoning of firm-level liquidity which in turn generates a disincentive for informed traders to
expend resources to obtain firm-specific information.

We propose and test two hypotheses. First, we posit that as ETFs become larger holders of a
firms shares, transaction costs for the underlying securities will increase. This increase in
trading costs is associated with a decrease in available liquidity for the component securities
owned by ETFs. Second, we posit that these increased transaction costs will lead to a general
deterioration in the pricing efficiency of the underlying securities. Specifically, we posit that the
increased transaction costs will serve as a deterrent to traders who would otherwise expend
resources on information acquisition about that stock. In other words, for firms that are widely-
held by ETFs, the incentive for agents to seek out, acquire, and trade on firm-specific
information will decrease. Over time, this will result in a general deterioration in the firms
information environment, and a reduction in the extent to which its stock price is able to quickly
reflect firm-specific information.4

3 Several models predict noise investors will migrate to index-like instruments because their losses to informed
traders are lower in these markets than in the market for individual securities (e.g., Rubinstein 1989; Subrahmanyam
1991; Gorton and Pennacchi 1993). Empirically, we have observed such a migration from actively managed assets
to passively managed ETFs in recent years. As of June 2015, total ETF trading is close to 28% of the total daily
value traded on US equity exchanges (Pisani 2015).
4
Note that the siphoning of liquidity from component securities can occur with other basket securities as well, such
as open-end index funds. However, a key difference between ETFs and index-linked open-end funds is that ETF
shares can be traded throughout the day, while transactions with open-end funds occur only at the end of the day,
and only at net asset value (NAV). Thus ETFs are a more attractive instrument for uninformed traders who trade for
speculative reasons, while index funds are better suited to longer term buy-and-hold investors. In section II, we
explain in detail the implications of this difference for our tests.

2
 To test these hypotheses, we conduct a series of tests using a cross-section of U.S. stocks
between 2000 and 2014. Our research design makes use of panel data based on firm-year
observations.5 Specifically, we collect end-of-year ETF ownership data and examine the effect
of changes in ETF ownership on the component securities: (1) trading costs, and (2) various
proxies of firm-level pricing efficiency.6

In our trading cost tests, we follow prior literature (Goyenko et al. 2009, Corwin and Schultz
2012, Amihud 2002) in using two proxies of firm trading costs the relative bid-ask spreads,
HLSPREAD, and an adjusted measure of the price impact of trades, ILLIQ_N.7 After controlling
for firm size, book-to-market ratio, share turnover, return volatility, and overall level of
institutional ownership, we find that an increase in ETF ownership is associated with an increase
in average daily bid-ask spreads of the component securities, measured over the next year. In
addition, we show an increase in ETF ownership is associated with lower market liquidity in the
underlying security over the next year.

Our tests show a one percentage point increase in ETF ownership is associated with an
increase of 1.6% in the average bid-ask spreads over the next year. At the same time, a one
percentage point increase in ETF ownership is associated with an increase of 2% in average
absolute returns over the next year. These findings are consistent with Hamm (2014), who
reports that increased ETF ownership is associated with an increase in the Kyle Lambda (a
stock illiquidity measure) for the underlying component securities owned by these funds.8

5
We use annual holding periods to test our hypotheses because we expect the information-related effects of ETF
ownership changes to be experienced gradually over time. Our inferences are the same if we use quarterly panels.
6
To improve our ability to identify the consequences of increased ETF ownership in a cleaner setting, we focus
mainly on analyzing the associations of lagged changes in ETF ownership with firms trading costs and measures of
pricing efficiency.
7
For reasons detailed in section III, we decompose the Amihud (2002) measure of price impact of trades and
investigate the effect of increased ETF ownership on the numerator of the Amihud (2002) measure, ILLIQ_N,
controlling for the denominator of the Amihud (2002) measure, ILLIQ_D.
8
Compared to Hamm (2014), we use alternative measures of stock liquidity, include different control variables,
examine annual vs. quarterly observations, and use a more complete firm-level longitudinal data set. Our main
findings with respect to the effect of ETF ownership on stock liquidity are consistent with Hamm (2014). It should
be noted that Hamm (2014) does not examine the implications of ETF ownership on the informational efficiency of
security prices.

3
 To test the information-related effects of ETF ownership, we examine the effect of ETF
ownership on two proxies for the extent to which stock prices reflect firm-specific information:
(1) stock return synchronicity, SYNCH (the extent to which variation in firm-level stock returns
is attributable to movements in market and related-industry returns), and (2) future earnings
response coefficient, FERC (the association between current firm-specific returns and future firm
earnings). In addition, we examine whether an increase in ETF ownership is associated with a
decline in the number of analysts covering the firm.9

Our results are broadly consistent with the information-related hypothesis. Specifically, we
find that an increase in ETF ownership is accompanied by a decline in the pricing efficiency of
the underlying component securities, as measured by either SYNCH or FERC. Our results
indicate that a one-percentage point increase in ETF ownership is associated with approximately
a 9 percentage point increase in the average annual change in return synchronicity. Furthermore,
firms experiencing a one-percentage point increase in ETF ownership also experience a 14%
reduction in the magnitude of their future earnings response coefficients. These results are
robust to various model perturbations, as well as the inclusion of controls for institutional
ownership and a host of other variables prescribed by prior literature (Roll 1988, Durnev et al.
2003, Piotroski and Roulstone 2004, Ettredge et al. 2005, Choi et al. 2011). Finally, we also find
that an increase in ETF ownership is accompanied by a decline in the number of analysts
covering the firm.

It is instructive to compare and contrast our results with the findings reported in a recent
working paper by Glosten, Nallareddy, and Zou (2016; hereafter, GNZ). Like us, GNZ examine
the effect of ETF trading on the informational efficiency of underlying securities. However, they
document an increase in information efficiency for firms with increased ETF trading. This
evidence suggests that an increase in ETF ownership improves pricing efficiency in the
underlying stock. At first blush, these findings seem at odds with ours. However, using the

9
These measures have been featured in prior literature on pricing efficiency (e.g., Roll 1988, Durnev et al. 2003,
Piotroski and Roulstone 2004, Ettredge et al. 2005, Choi et al. 2011).

4
same filtering rules as GNZ, we are able to replicate their finding, and reconcile them with our
own.

A key difference in the research design between the two studies is in the timing of the ETF
trades. While we examine the effect of past changes in ETF ownership on future earning
response coefficients (FERCs), GNZs tests are focused on the effect of contemporaneous ETF
trading on current quarter earnings-response-coefficients (ERCs). In other words, their study
focuses the effect of contemporaneous increases in ETF ownership on the markets ability to
incorporate same-quarter earnings. However, our study is focused on longer-term implications
of changes in ETF ownership for the informational environment of the firms.

The research design of GNZ is motivated by price discovery theory in market microstructure.
A number of studies in that literature suggest trading associated with the ETF-arbitrage
mechanism can improve intraday price discovery for the underlying securities (Hasbrouck 2003,
Yu 2005, Chen and Strother 2008, Fang and Sanger 2012, and Ivanov et al. 2013), particularly if
the individual securities are less liquid than the ETF. The idea is that traders can respond to
earnings news (especially the macro-related component of earnings) more quickly by trading the
lower cost ETF instrument. As a result, the price of the ETF may lead the price of the
underlying securities in integrating this type of news. Hasbrouck (2003) provide some empirical
evidence for this phenomenon using index futures. GNZs findings are consistent with this idea
in that increases in ETF ownership in a given quarter are associated with higher same-quarter
ERCs.

Applying the same data filters as GNZ, we also find a positive contemporaneous relation
between increases in ETF ownership and the markets ability to incorporate same-quarter
earnings. However, we go a step further and show that this positive relation holds only when all
three variables (stock returns, ETF changes, and earnings) are measured in the same quarter. As
we lengthen the time lag between ETF changes and future earnings, the relation turns negative.
Moreover, as we increase the time lag between past ETF changes and current returns, the
negative relation becomes stronger. In other words, while same-quarter ETF trading seems to

5
improve pricing efficiency, the more salient result over the longer run is that increases in ETF
ownership lead to a deterioration in pricing efficiency for the underlying securities.

We also provide some evidence on the differential impact of changes in ETF ownership on
the incorporation of macro-based versus firm-specific components of earnings news. GNZ
posit that increased ETF trading can enhance price discovery for information embedded in
macro-based component of firm earnings. The idea is that, for this type of earnings news,
informed traders would prefer to trade through the ETF, which is a low-cost venue. To test this
conjecture, GNZ parse the earnings of each firm into a macro-based component and a firm-
specific component. Their results show that increases in ETF ownership primarily improve the
markets ability to integrate macro-based earnings news. In their tests, the effect of changes in
ETF ownership on the association between firm-specific component of earnings and stock
returns, ERC, is insignificant.

In contrast, our main hypothesis is that the cost of information arbitrage will increase with
ETF ownership. While this effect should reduce firm-specific FERC, it could also reduce the
macro-based FERC. This is because as ETF ownership increases, all investors (both informed
and uninformed) face higher trading costs, and consequently have lower incentive to acquire and
analyze information about the underlying securities. Therefore, over time, we would expect
increased ETF ownership to be associated with lower FERCs on both the macro-based and firm-
specific components of earnings.

Our results largely support this hypothesis. First, we replicate the GNZ result using a
quarterly panel. Second, we show that in periods following increases in ETF ownership, the
correlation between returns and future period macro-based and firm-specific components of
earnings is lower. In fact, we find that the negative impact of increased ETF ownership on
firms FERC is generally more pronounced for the firm-specific component of earnings. Taken
together, our findings confirm the GNZ finding that ETF trading improves price discovery for
the same-quarter macro-based component of a firms earnings. However, we also show this
positive effect is short-lived. Over the longer term, the primary effect of increases in ETF

6
ownership is to lower both macro-based and firm-specific FERCs. This effect is particularly
strong with respect to the firm-specific component of earnings.

These findings contribute to a growing literature on the economic consequences of basket or

index-linked products. The rapid increase in index-linked products in recent years has attracted
the attention of investors, regulators, and financial researchers.10 A number of prior studies
suggest that trading associated with the ETF-arbitrage mechanism can improve intraday price
discovery for the underlying stocks (Hasbrouck 2003, Yu 2005, Chen and Strother 2008, Fang
and Sanger 2012, and Ivanov et al. 2013). Other studies highlight concerns related to the pricing
and trading of these instruments, including the more rapid transmission of liquidity shocks,
higher return correlations among stocks held by same ETFs (Da and Shive 2013, Sullivan and
Xiong 2012), greater systemic risk (Ramaswamy 2011), and elevated intraday return volatility
(Ben-David et al. 2015, Broman 2013, Krause et al. 2013), particularly during times of market
stress (Wurgler 2010).

Our study adds a longer-term informational perspective to this debate. Adopting key insights
from information economics (Rubinstein 1989, Subrahmanyam 1991, Gorton and Pennacchi
1993, Bhattacharaya and OHara 2016, Cong and Xu 2016), we present empirical evidence on
how incentives in the market for information can affect pricing in the market for the underlying
securities. Our results suggest that ETF ownership can lead to increased trading costs for market
participants, which has further consequences for the amount of firm-specific information that is
incorporated into stock prices. While the benefits of ETFs to investors are well understood
(Rubinstein 1989), far less is known about other (unintended) economic consequences they may
bring to financial markets. Our findings help highlight a potentially undesirable consequence of
ETFs.

Evidence presented in this study also provides support for a long-standing prediction of the
noisy rational expectations literature. A number of models in this literature (Grossman and

10
Sullivan and Xiong (2012) note that while passively managed funds represent only about one-third of all fund
assets, their average annual growth rate since the early 1990s is 26 percent, double that of actively managed assets.
Much of the increase in passively managed assets has been in the form of ETFs. According to Madhavan and
Sobczyk (2014) as of June, 2014 there were 5,217 global ETFs representing $2.63 trillion in total net assets.

7
Stiglitz 1980, Hellwig 1980, Admati 1985, Diamond and Verrecchia 1981, Verrecchia 1982, and
Kyle 1985, 1989) predict that when information is costly to acquire and process, informational
efficiency of security prices will vary with the supply of uninformed investors willing to trade
these securities. Using the emergence of ETFs, we link the siphoning of firm-level liquidity and
an increase in trading costs to a reduction in the incentives for information acquisition, and hence
lower pricing efficiency.

Lee and So (2015) argue that the study of market efficiency involves the analysis of a joint
equilibrium in which all markets need to be cleared simultaneously. Specifically, supply must
equal demand in the market for information about the underlying security, as well as in the
market for the security itself. Our findings provide support for this view of market efficiency,
and bring into sharp relief the close relationship between the market for component securities
and the market for information about these securities.

The remainder of our study is organized as follows. In the next section, we provide some
institutional details on ETFs and describe the link between noise trading and ETFs. In section
III, we develop our main hypotheses and outline our research design. Section IV reports the
empirical findings, and section V concludes.

II. Exchange-Traded Funds and Noise Traders

II.1 Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

In the United States, ETFs are registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and are
classified as open-ended funds or as unit investment trusts (UITs). Like open-end index funds,
in a typical ETF, the underlying basket of securities is defined with the objective of mimicking
the performance of a broad market index. But ETFs differ in some important respects from
traditional open-ended funds. For example, unlike open-ended funds, which can only be bought
or sold at the end of the trading day for their net asset value (NAV), ETFs can be traded

8
throughout the day much like a closed-end fund.11 In addition, ETFs do not sell shares directly
to investors. Instead, they only issue shares in large blocks called creation units to authorized
participants (APs) who effectively act as market-makers.

Only the ETF manager and designated APs participate in the primary market for the
creation/redemption of ETF shares. At the inception of the ETF, APs buy an appropriate basket
of the predefined securities and deliver them to the ETF manager, in exchange for a number of
ETF creation units. Investors can then buy or sell individual shares of the ETF from APs in the
secondary market on an exchange. Shares of the ETF trade during the day in the secondary
market at prices that can deviate from their net asset value (NAV), but the difference is kept in
line through an arbitrage mechanism in the primary market. For example, when an ETF is
trading at a premium to an APs estimate of value, the AP may choose to deliver the creation
basket of securities in exchange for ETF shares, which in turn it could elect to sell or keep.

Note that the creation/redemption mechanism in the ETF structure allows the number of
shares outstanding in an ETF to expand or contract based on investor demand. As Madhavan
and Sobczyk (2014) observe, this creation/redemption mechanism means that liquidity can be
accessed through primary market transactions in the underlying assets, beyond the visible
secondary market. This additional element of liquidity means that trading costs of ETFs are
determined by the lower bound of execution costs in either the secondary or primary markets, a
factor especially important for large investors. (p.3). In other words, unlike open-end funds,
APs interested in accessing the assets represented by the ETF can now choose to trade either in
the secondary ETF market (buy/sell the ETF shares directly), or in the primary market (buy/sell
the basket securities).

For other (non-APs) investors, ETFs offer the convenience of a stock (ETFs can be bought
and sold throughout the day, like common stocks) along with the diversification of a mutual fund
or index funds (they give investors a convenient way to purchase a broad basket in a single
transaction). Unlike open-end index funds (or other basket securities), ETFs do not require

11
Specifically, unlike ETFs, open-ended do not provide a ready intraday market for deposits and redemptions with a
continuous series of available transaction prices. Hence, investors may not know with sufficient certainty the cash-
out value of redemption before they must commit it.

9
investors to deal directly with the fund itself. The most popular ETFs also tend to be much more
liquid than the underlying securities, making them useful instruments for speculators and active
traders.12 Finally, adding to their appeal to active traders, ETF shares can also be borrowed and
sold short.

In sum, ETFs possess many of the characteristics of what Rubinstein (1989) calls an ideal
market basket vehicle. In particular, ETFs (1) have a continuous market through time of basket
sales and purchases (i.e., provide reliable cash-out prices prior to commitment to trade), (2) have
low creation costs (i.e., trade execution costs incurred in the original purchase of components of
the underlying basket and organization costs), (3) enhance tax benefits obtained from positions in
the individual components of the basket (there is no taxation of unrealized profits; unlike open-
ended mutual funds, which typically fund shareholder redemptions by selling portfolio securities,
ETFs usually redeem investors in-kind), (4) are offered in small enough units to appeal to small
investors (not just to large institutional investors), and (5) remove all basket-motivated trading
away from the individual securities or risks comprising the basket.

We posit these characteristics make ETFs attractive to noise (uninformed) traders who would
otherwise trade the underlying securities. Our main conjecture is that with the rise in ETFs,
some noise traders will gravitate to ETFs and away from the underlying stocks, with attendant
consequences for the trading costs and pricing efficiency of the underlying securities. In the next
subsection, we discuss in more detail this hypothesized link between noise trading and ETFs.

II.2 Noise Traders and ETFs

Although noise (uninformed) traders play a prominent role in analytical models, surprisingly
little is known about why they trade. The typical noisy rational expectations model (e.g., Kyle

12
It should be noted that ETFs are most likely to be successful when the underlying securities are relatively less
liquid or difficult to borrow (thus creating an equilibrium demand for the ETF shares, with its lower trading costs).
For example, the highly popular small-cap ETF, IWM, is based on the Russell 2000 index. While the underlying
securities are typically less liquid (i.e., they represent the 2,000 stocks in the Russell Index that are below the largest
1,000), IWM itself is over $26 billion in size and trades at extremely low costs.

10
1985, Verrecchia 1982, Admati 1985) abstracts away from this question. In these models,
noisetraders trade for exogenous reasons unrelated to information. Because their motive for
trading is non-informational, noise traders in this literature are also often referred to as liquidity
traders. This moniker suggests they trade either for consumptive or for portfolio-rebalancing
reasons, neither of which would necessarily change with the rise of ETFs.

Our analysis can be accommodated within a standard noisy rational expectations (NRE)
framework. The key assumption needed is that the cost of becoming informed in a security is
increasing with its ETF ownership. As ETF ownership increases, we assert (and our tests show)
that the cost of informational arbitrage will also increase. Given increased information costs,
NRE models (e.g., Verrecchia 1982, Grossman and Stiglitz 1980) predict a decrease in the
securitys pricing efficiency. This robust prediction of the NRE literature is the basis of our
main hypothesis.13 Note however, that because the NRE framework provides no motivation for
noise trading, it has little to say about why noise trading might migrate to ETFs, rather than to
index funds. To address this question, we need to impose additional structure on noise trading.

The noise traders we have in mind are closer to those featured in Black (1986). According to
Black, noise traders engage in non-informational trades not primarily for liquidity reasons, but
because they either mistakenly think they have superior information, or because they find utility
from trading itself. In his words: Noise trading is trading on noise as if it were information.
People who trade on noise are willing to trade even though from an objective point of view they
would be better off not trading. Perhaps they think the noise they are trading on is information.

13
What happens if the cost of private information remains constant? In that case, pricing efficiency may not be
affected by an exodus of uninformed traders. This result derives because two opposing forces are at work:
a. As uninformed traders exit the market the profits from trading with them as an informed trader becomes
smaller; and,
b. As fewer informed traders purchase private signals, the value of being one of the remaining informed
traders becomes larger.
The net effect is that fewer informed traders will individually make more money, with no net change in the
economy-wide value of becoming informed (which remains equal to the information cost). Although the source of
noise differs in Verrecchia (1982) and the Grossman and Stiglitz (1980), the same result obtains in both models. In
both, pricing efficiency will be unaffected by an exodus of uninformed traders if information costs remain constant.
We are grateful to the Editor for pointing this out to us.

11
Or perhaps they just like to trade. (Black 1986; p. 531). This form of noise trading, Black
argues, is needed to rationalize the high volume of trading we observe in individual stocks.

With the rise of ETFs, we posit some noise (uninformed) traders who formerly traded the
underlying stocks will migrate to these basket instruments instead. They do so because ETFs
still allow them to express a view on certain stocks (or stock baskets/substitutes), but at much
lower costs. A key difference between ETFs and passive index funds is that ETFs allow noise
traders to satisfy their desire to trade (or engage in speculation) while passive index products, by
and large, do not. If Black is correct, and noise traders do not trade primarily for consumptive
reasons, ETFs can offer transactional utility to these traders in ways that passive index funds
cannot.

Recent empirical evidence suggests such a migration is indeed taking place. Sullivan and
Xiong (2012) find that the average annual growth rate of passively managed assets since the
early 1990s is double that of actively managed assets. In recent years, much of this increase has
been in the form of ETFs. More importantly, the total value of trading in ETFs far outstrips their
share ownership. Figure 1 shows that ETF ownership averaged around 5.5% for our sample
firms in recent years. However, as Pisani (2015) observed, total ETF trading is now close to
28% of the total daily value traded on US equity exchanges. In other words, the daily turnover in
ETF shares is approximately five times larger than the turnover in the shares of a typical stock.
These findings show ETFs are now serving as common trading vehicles, and not merely as a way
to secure a passive index return.

III. Hypothesis development and research design

The primary goal of this study is to investigate whether an increase in the proportion of firm
shares held by ETFs is associated with a decline in the pricing efficiency of the underlying
component securities. To address this question we identify two central dimensions of a firms
information environment: (1) transactions costs of market participants, and (2) the extent to

12
which stock prices reflect firm-specific information. We then make predictions about the effects
of ETF ownership on each of these dimensions and construct tests to evaluate these predictions.

We first posit that ETFs serve as attractive substitutes to the underlying component securities
for uninformed traders. Because of the trading benefits offered by ETFs, especially to
uninformed investors, we expect uninformed investors to gravitate toward ETFs and away from
the underlying stocks (Milgrom and Stokey 1982, Rubinstein 1989). As uninformed traders shift
toward trading ETFs and away from trading the underlying securities, transactions costs for
trading the underlying component securities will increase (Subrahmanyam 1991, Gorton and
Pennacchi 1993, Mahavan and Sobczyk 2014). The increase in transactions costs will deter
market participants from engaging in firm-specific information gathering activities and will lead
to less informative stock prices in the firm-specific component (Grossman and Stiglitz 1980;
Admati 1985). Based on the reasoning outlined above, we raise the following hypotheses:

H1: An increase in ETF ownership is associated with higher trading costs for the
underlying component securities.

H2: An increase in ETF ownership is associated with deterioration in the pricing

efficiency of the underlying component securities.

To test H1, we analyze the relation between changes in ETF ownership and changes in two
proxies of liquidity that capture trading costs: (1) bid-ask spreads, and (2) an adjusted measure of
the price impact of trades (Goyenko et al. 2009). To investigate the relation between changes in
ETF ownership and changes in bid-ask spreads, we estimate the following regression:14

= + +

14
We test our hypotheses using annual panels because we expect the effect of increased ETF ownership to manifest
itself gradually over time after an increase in ETF ownership. Figure 2 presents a sample construction timeline for
the key empirical variables used in our tests. Most of our analyses are done using annual changes in ETF
ownership, returns, and earnings (Panel A). However, in our replication and reconciliation of the GNZ results, we
used quarterly data (Panel B) to match their analyses.

13
 + _ + _ + (1)

In Eq. (1), the operator indicates a change in the value of a particular variable. For
example, is the difference between firm is measure of during year
t and its value in year t-1. , is the Corwin and Schultz (2012) annual high-low
measure of bid-ask spread for firm i over year t. Corwin and Schultz (2012) derive this estimator

from the observation that the ratio of high to low observed stock prices ( ) in a particular time

period is a function of the bid-ask spread (S), which is a fixed amount, and the true
unobservable range of high ( ) and low ( ) stock prices, which themselves are functions of
the underlying variance of the stock price that varies with the time horizon:
( )
ln = ln ( )

This distinction makes it possible to estimate the spread by using a system of equations in
which spread is constant but the time horizon (and consequently, the variance) changes. The
result spread estimator (S) is defined by the following set of expressions:
( )
= , = , = ln , = ln

We use this measure of bid-ask spread as a proxy for trading costs because it is much less
time and data-intensive to calculate than intraday bid-ask spread measures, and because Corwin
and Schultz (2012) demonstrate that it outperforms the Roll (1984), Lesmond et al. (1999), and
Holden (2009) techniques for measuring bid-ask spreads.
The variable of interest in Eq. (1), , is the change in the percentage of firm is
shares held by all ETFs from the end of year t-2 to the end of year t-1. Our first hypothesis (H1)
predicts that the coefficient is positive, indicating that, ceteris paribus, increases in ETF
ownership are associated with increases in bid-ask spreads. Change in ETF ownership may be
correlated with overall change in institutional ownership and prior research suggests there might

14
be a relation between institutional ownership and bid-ask spreads.15 To isolate the effect of
change in ETF ownership on stock liquidity and to ensure that our results are not confounded by
the relation of ETF ownership with institutional ownership, we include directly in
Eq. (1) as an additional control variable. is the change in the percentage of firm is
shares held by all institutions from the end of year t-2 to the end of year t-1. 16
In Eq. (1), represents a vector of firm- and industry-related control variables
nominated by prior literature. The vector includes the change in the log of market value of
equity [LN(MVE)] during year t-1 because larger firms generally have smaller bid-ask spreads.
Prior studies also find that bid-ask spreads increase with the return volatility and decrease with
the share turnover (Copeland and Galai 1983). Accordingly, we control for the change in the
annualized standard deviation of daily returns during year t-1 [STD(RET)] and the change in
average share turnover from year t-2 to year t-1 (TURN). We also include the change in book
to market ratio (BTM) during year t-1 as a control for the effect of financial distress and/or
growth opportunities on bid-ask spreads (Fama and French 1992, Lakonishok et al. 1994).
Finally, to control for time and industry trends in bid-ask spreads, we include year and industry
fixed effects.17 The industry fixed effects are defined based on the 48 Fama and French (1997)
industry classification.
As an additional test of H1, we examine the association between changes in ETF ownership
and another proxy of a firms market liquidity or trading costs: an adjusted measure of the price
impact of trades from Amihud (2002). The Amihud (2002) measure of the price impact of
trades, also known as the illiquidity ratio, ILLIQ, is the ratio of average daily absolute returns to

15
Prior research on the relation between bid-ask spreads and institutional ownership is mixed. Glosten and Harris
(1988) suggest that higher levels of concentrated institutional ownership will increase bid-ask spreads, while higher
levels of dispersed institutional ownership might encourage competition that reduces bid-ask spreads.
16
Our inferences are the same when we use the residual from the regression model = + +
as a measure of change in ETF ownership that is orthogonal to the change in the level of institutional ownership.
17
In untabulated analyses we explore the sensitivity of our inferences to the inclusion of year fixed effects. We do
so to address concerns that the inclusion of year fixed effects limits our analyses to the variation in changes in ETF
ownership relative to other firms in the same year, while ignoring the variation in total average year-over-year
changes in ETF ownership (which may also have a significant explanatory power for variation in the dependent
variables). Our inferences remain the same under the alternative specification that excludes year fixed effects. We
tabulate results controlling for year fixed effects, because we believe that controlling for unobserved time-specific
effects helps us better isolate the effects of changes in ETFs on variables of interest. We thank the referee for
raising this issue.

15
average daily dollar volume. While ILLIQ is a well-accepted proxy for the price impact of trades
(Goyenko et al. 2009), in the context of this paper, using ILLIQ as originally defined to test H1
complicates our analyses. Prior literature (Hasbrouck 2003, Yu 2005, Chen and Strother 2008,
Fang and Sanger 2012, and Ivanov et al. 2013) shows that ETF ownership can affect both the
numerator of the illiquidity ratio (the average daily absolute returns) and the denominator of the
illiquidity ratio (the average daily dollar volume). In particular, changes in ETF ownership can
mechanically induce greater trading volume without conferring an overall improvement in
liquidity on the underlying stock (Ben-David, Franzoni, and Moussawi 2015). Indeed, during
our sample period, the range of changes in volume is an order of magnitude larger than the range
of changes in absolute returns. Hence, constraining the two components of the illiquidity ratio to
share a single coefficient is not appropriate in our study.
To mitigate this problem, we decompose ILLIQ into two components (the numerator and the
denominator) and estimate the following regression:

_ = + + _
+ + _
+ _ + (2)

_ is the daily absolute return for firm i averaged over all the trading days in year
t. The dependent variable in Eq. (2), _ , is the change in _ from year t-1 to
year t. _ is the daily dollar volume for firm i averaged over all the trading days in year t
and _ is the change in _ from year t-1 to year t. and
are as defined above. denotes several control variables measured as of the end of
year t-1. Specifically, it includes the log of market value of equity [LN(MVE)] as of the end of
year t-1, because we expect larger firms to exhibit smaller price impact of trades. In addition,
contains the change in book-to market-ratio ( BTM) during year t-1 to control
for the effects of financial distress and/or growth opportunities on _ . In our estimation
of Eq. (2) we also include year and industry fixed effects. Our hypothesis predicts that the
coefficient is positive, indicating that, ceteris paribus increases in ETF ownership are

16
associated with increases in absolute returns (and hence lower liquidity or higher trading costs
for market participants).

Our second hypothesis (H2) states that an increase in ETF ownership is associated with
deterioration in pricing efficiency of the underlying component security. We test this hypothesis
using two proxies for the extent to which stock prices reflect firm-specific information: (1) stock
return synchronicity, SYNCH, and (2) future earnings response coefficient, FERC.SYNCH is a
measure of the extent to which variation in firm-level stock returns is explained by movements in
market and related-industry returns. Roll (1988) posits that when greater relative levels of firm-
specific information are being impounded into stock prices, the magnitude of the stock return
synchronicity measure decreases. Wurgler (2000), Durnev et al. (2003), Durnev et al. (2004),
and Piotroski and Roulstone (2004) use this insight and provide evidence in support of it in a
variety of settings. Because stock return synchronicity is negatively related to the amount of
firm-specific information embedded in stock price, based on H2, we predict that changes in ETF
ownership lead to positive changes in stock return synchronicity.

To estimate firm-specific measures of stock return synchronicity, , we follow

the methodology outlined by Durnev et al. (2003). First, for each firm-year observation we
obtain the adjusted coefficient of determination (adjusted ) by regressing daily stock returns
on the current and prior days value-weighted market return (MKTRET) and the current and prior
days value-weighted Fama and French 48 industry return (INDRET):

= + +
+ + + (3)

In Eq. (3), RETid is firm is stock return on day d, MKTRETd is the value-weighted market
return on day d, and INDRETd is the value-weighed return of firm is industry, defined using the
Fama-French 48 classifications, on day d.18 Eq. (3) is estimated separately for each firm-year,

18
We adopt this model of returns to measure firm-specific adjusted R2 (and, consequently, synchronicity) because it
is the most frequently used in the literature (e.g., Piotroski and Roulstone 2004, Hutton et al 2010, Chan and Chan
2014). To ensure that our inferences are not affected by the method chosen to estimate firm-specific adjusted R2 we

17
using daily returns for firm i over the trading days in year t, with a minimum of 150 daily
observations.

Next, for each firm-year observation we calculate the annual measure of stock return
synchronicity, , as the logarithmic transformation of to create an unbounded
continuous measure of synchronicity (Piotroski and Roulstone 2004, Hutton et al. 2010,

Crawford et al. 2012, Hutton et al. 2010):19 = . High values of the

measure indicate that a greater fraction of variation in firm-level stock returns is

explained by variations in market and related-industry returns.

To test whether an increase in ETF ownership is accompanied by a decline in the amount

of firm-specific information that is being impounded into stock prices we estimate the following
equation:

= + +
+ _ + _ + (4)

In Eq. (4), is the difference between firm is measure of during year t

and its value in year t-1. indicates several annual change measures that prior
research suggests are associated with changes in stock return synchronicity. Following Jin and
Myers (2006), we control for changes in the skewness of firm is returns over year t-1 ( SKEW).
In addition, since Li et al. (2014) show that synchronicity is often confounded with systematic
risk, we include the annual change in CAPM beta as a control for a firms systematic risk. As
additional controls, we include annual changes during year t-1 in the log of market value of
equity [ LN(MVE)], book-to-market ratio ( BTM), average share turnover ( TURN), and year
and industry fixed effects. and are defined and measured as in Eqs. (1) and
(2). Our second hypothesis predicts that the coefficient is positive, indicating that, ceteris

also estimate synchronicity using the methodology outlined in Crawford et al (2012) and Li et al. (2014). Our
inferences are the same when we use these alternate measurement techniques.
19
In computing SYNCHit we exclusively use adjusted values. Following Crawford et al. (2012), we truncate the
sample of adjusted values at 0.0001.

18
paribus, increases in ETF ownership are associated with increases in stock return synchronicity.

Our second proxy for the extent to which stock prices reflect firm specific information is
the future earnings response coefficient, which measures the extent to which current stock
returns reflect future firm earnings. To test whether an increase in ETF ownership is
accompanied by a decline in the extent to which firm-level stock returns reflect future firm
earnings, we follow prior literature (e.g., Kothari and Sloan 1992, Collins et al. 1994, Choi et al.
2011) and estimate several versions of the following regression model:

= + + + + (5)
+ + +
+ + _ + _ +

In Eq. (5), represents firm-level stock returns during year t, and ,

, and denote firm-level net income before extraordinary items during years t-1,
t, and t+1, scaled by market value of equity. The coefficient measures the relation between
current firm-level stock returns and future firm earnings; prior research refers to this coefficient
as the future earnings response coefficient (FERC) and offers it as a measure of the extent to
which current stock returns reflect/predict future firm earnings (Lundholm and Myers 2002,
Ettredge et al. 2005, Choi et al. 2011). To address our main research question, we include as
explanatory variables the level of ETF ownership ( ) at the end of year t - 1 as well as the
interaction between the level of ETF ownership and past, current, and future earnings (
). Our second hypothesis predicts that the coefficient on the interaction of ETF
ownership with current and future firm earnings is negative, indicating that FERCs are lower for
firms with higher ETF ownership (i.e., and, more importantly, are negative).

As in previous equations, denotes a number of control variables as suggested

by prior research. Following Collins et al. (1994), we control for future firm-level stock returns,
, to address the potential measurement error induced by using actual future earnings as a
proxy for expected future earnings. In addition, to account for the effect of a firms growth on

19
the ability of its stock returns to reflect future earnings, we control for total asset growth from
year t-1 to year t, ATGROWTHt. Also, we control for the possibility that firms experiencing
losses may have lower FERCs by including an indicator variable, LOSS t, that equals one if the
firm experiences a loss in year t+1 (i.e., < 0) and 0 otherwise. also
includes the natural logarithm of market value of equity at the end of year t.

We also examine how FERCs vary with changes in ETF ownership by decomposing the
level of ETF ownership at the end of period t-1 into the sum of the level of ETF ownership at the
end of period t-2 and the change in ETF ownership during period t-1:

= +

Thus, we re-estimate Eq. (5) using and in lieu of :

= + + + + (5a)
+ + +
+ + +
+ + +
_ + _ +

In estimating Eq. (5a), we expect that and the coefficients on the interactions of lagged
levels of ETF ownership with current and future firm earnings (i.e., and
) as well as and the coefficients on the interactions of lagged
changes in ETF ownership with current and future firm earnings (i.e., and
) are negative.

The consequences of changes in ETF ownership on stock pricing efficiency may differ
for macro-based (systematic or aggregate) and firm-specific (or idiosyncratic) components
of earnings. To test this conjecture, we follow the procedure in GNZ and decompose total
earnings into macro-based and firm-specific components by estimating the following
regression:

20
 = + + (6)

In Eq. (6), EARNMKTt is the size-weighted average of year t earnings before extraordinary items
for all firms with available earnings information in Compustat. EARNINDt is the size-weighted
average of year t earnings before extraordinary items for all firms with the same Fama-French 48
industry classification.

For each firm-year, we define the systematic or aggregate portion of earnings

(EARNAGGit) as the fitted value from the annual estimation of Eq. (6). The residual portion is
defined as the idiosyncratic or firm-specific portion of earnings (EARNFIRMit). Using these
components of earnings, we estimate the following modified version of Eq. (5):

= + + + (5b)

+ + + +

+ + +

+ + +

+ + +

+ + +

+ + + _ + _ +

With the exception of EARNAGGit and EARNFIRMit, all variables in Eq. (5b) remain as
defined in Eq. (5a). H2 predicts that the coefficients on the interaction of lagged ETF ownership
measures with current and future macro-based and firm-specific earnings will be negative (i.e.,
, , , and for macro-based earnings; , , , and for firm-specific

21
earnings).

As an additional test of H2, we examine how ETF ownership relates to the number of
analysts covering the firm during a year. H2 predicts that higher ETF ownership will lead to
lower incentives for information acquisition for the underlying securities. To the extent that
analysts are drawn to firms that are more attractive to individual investors, we expect that firms
with increases in ETF ownership will experience reductions in analyst coverage. To test this
conjecture, we estimate several versions of the following equation:

= + +
+ _ + _ + (7)

In Eq. (7), is the change from year t-1 to year t in the number of unique
analysts on I/B/E/S providing forecasts of firm is one-year-ahead earnings. As before,
represents annual changes in a number of control variables, measured as the
change in the level of each variable from year t-2 to year t-1, which are suggested by prior
literature. Barth et al. (2001) demonstrate that firms with large research and development
expenses or intangible assets experience greater analyst coverage. Accordingly, we include the
annual change in the proportion of research and development expenses relative to total operating
expenses ( RD_Fit-1) and the annual change in the proportion of intangible assets relative to total
assets ( INTAN_Fit-1) as controls. Following Lang and Lundholm (1996), we also control for
annual change in return volatility [ STD(RET)it-1]. To capture the effect of stock return
momentum on levels of analyst coverage, we control for prior firm-level 6-month equity returns
(MOMit-1), measured as of the end of year t-1. Eq. (7) also includes controls for firm size
[LN(MVE)], change in book-to-market ratio ( BTM), and change in share turnover ( TURN).
Our second hypothesis predicts that the coefficient is negative, indicating that, ceteris
paribus, changes in ETF ownership are associated with decline in number of analysts covering a
firm.

22
 To control for potential time-series as well as cross-sectional correlations between firm-
specific measures, we base our inferences from all equations on t-statistics calculated using
standard errors clustered by both firm and year (e.g., Gow et al. 2010). All variables used in the
estimation of Eqs. (1) to (7) are also defined in Appendix A.20

IV. Empirical Analyses

IV.1 Sample construction and descriptive statistics
We determine year-end ETF ownership by first using CRSP, Compustat, and
OptionMetrics data bases to identify all ETFs traded on the major U.S. exchanges. Specifically,
we identify ETFs as securities on CRSP with a share code of 73 and securities on Compustat or
OptionMetrics with an issue type of %. After identifying candidate ETFs, we obtain for each
ETF the reported equity holdings from the Thomson Financial S12 database. For some ETFs,
the Thomson Financial S12 database does not provide regular reporting of equity holdings. In
these instances, we hand collect additional holdings data from Bloomberg Financial. ETFs
without any reported holding data in the Thomson Financial database or Bloomberg Financial
are excluded from the sample. This process yields a sample of 443 unique ETFs. Appendix B
provides a list of the 10 largest ETFs in our sample, ranked based on the average assets under
management.

Using the annual panel of holdings for each ETF we define, for every stock in a given
year, the ETF ownership variable (ETF) as the aggregate number of shares held by all ETFs
divided by total number of shares outstanding in that year. We repeat this process for every
firm-year between 2000 and 2014 to construct our panel. Our sample begins in 2000 because it

20
Note that our main identification strategy is to link changes in ETF ownership to subsequent changes in the
variables of interest. An alternative approach is to identify a discontinuity in ETF ownership arising from an
exogenous event (i.e., an event unrelated to firms trading costs or information environment). For example, Chang,
Hong and Liskovich (CHL; 2015) use a regression discontinuity (RD) design to study the effect of Russell 2000
index membership on stock returns. In an attempt to adopt the same strategy, we obtained the CHL dataset of
instrumented Russell membership changes and closely follow their approach. Unfortunately, we found that ETF
ownership does not change significantly immediately surrounding Russell 2000 index inclusions/exclusions. While
this result is consistent with CHLs own finding of no relation between this event and changes in overall institutional
ownership, it unfortunately means that the Russell 2000 membership reconstitution is not an effective instrument for
changes in ETF ownership.

23
is the first year with sufficient variation in ETF ownership to conduct our analyses. Our sample
ends in 2014 due to data availability constraints. All firm-years with no reported ETF ownership
during the sample period are included in the sample with ETFit = 0.

Figure 1 reports the average ETF ownership across firms for each year of our sample.
The figure reveals a significant increase in average ETF ownership over our sample period, from
roughly 1% in 2000 to nearly 5.5% in 2014. This is consistent with the rapid increase in the
dollar value of ETF trading as a percentage of total exchange dollar value traded. For example,
during June 2015, the total value of ETF trading represented close to 28% of the total daily
exchange value traded (Pisani 2015), which represents a 35% increase in percentage of value of
ETF trading from June 2014. Clearly ETFs have quickly become an important vehicle for
traders in the equity market.

We obtain market-related data on all US-listed firms from CRSP and accounting data
from Compustat. To be included in our sample, each firm-year observation must have
information on stock price, number of shares outstanding, and book value of equity. We also
require sufficient data to calculate the standard deviation of daily returns and average share
turnover within each firm year. We restrict our analyses to firms with non-negative book-to-
market ratios in every year of our sample period. This results in a sample of 39,863 firm-years
and 5,992 unique firms. In some of our analyses, we also require annual data on analysts
coverage. In such analyses, our sample size is reduced to 29,562 firm-year observations and
4,184 unique firms. The number of observations included in each regression varies according to
data availability.

Panel A of table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the main variables used in the
analyses. Of particular interest for our analyses is the level of ETF ownership, measured as a
percentage of total shares outstanding held by all ETFs, and changes in ETF ownership. The
mean (median) percentage ETF ownership is 3.31% (2.52%). This is much lower than the level
of institutional ownership, which has a mean (median) of 57.78% (62.50%). We also observe
consistently larger annual changes in institutional ownership relative changes in ETF ownership.
The mean (median) change in ETF ownership is 48 (27.7) basis points while the mean (median)

24
change in institutional ownership is 264 (109) basis points. The distributional statistics of both
ETF and institutional ownership in our sample are consistent with prior literature (Hamm 2014,
Jiambalvo 2002). Nevertheless, we expect the two measures to differ in many important respects
and have different effects on measures of trading costs and pricing efficiency.

Panel A also reveals that ILLIQ_N and ILLIQ_D, the two components of changes in
the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio, have notably different variances. ILLIQ_N is very
narrowly distributed with a standard deviation of .801, while ILLIQ_D exhibits a significantly
larger standard deviation of 15.661. This difference provides further support for our decision to
decompose the Amihud (2002) ratio into its two components in an attempt to estimate the effect
of changes in ETF ownership on ILLIQ_N controlling for ILLIQ_D.

Table 1, panels B and C present Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients between
the key levels and changes of variables in our regression analysis. In our sample, ETF is
positively correlated with changes in book to market ratio (Pearson coef. = 0.022) and turnover
(Pearson coef. = 0.07). Panel B reveals that ETF is positively correlated with two proxies of
changes in trading costs, HLSPREAD (Pearson coef. = .171) and ILLIQ_N (Pearson coef. =
.193). Consistent with our hypotheses, ETF is also positively correlated with SYNCH
(Pearson coef. = .080) and negatively correlated with ANALYST (Pearson coef. = -.005).

IV.2 Testing H1: ETF ownership and trading costs of market participants
Tables 2 and 3 present regression summary statistics from the estimation of Eqs. (1) and
(2) which are designed to test our first hypothesis using two measures of liquidity that capture
trading costs and various model specifications.

Column 1 of table 2 reveals that change in bid-ask spread, HLSPREAD, exhibits the
expected relations with our control variables. HLSPREAD is negatively associated with
increases in firm size (coef. = -0.044, t-stat. = -1.67), positive associated with increases in the
book-to-market ratio (coef. = 0.051, t-stat. = 2.42), and positively associated with increases in
return volatility (coef. = 0.001, t-stat. = 1.86). According to column 1 of table 2, changes in ETF
ownership are positively related to changes in bid-ask spreads (coef. = 0.016, t-stat. = -2.41).

25
This finding supports our hypothesis that, ceteris paribus, the trading costs of market participants
increase with changes in ETF ownership. To ensure that the results in column 1 are not
confounded by the relation between changes in institutional ownership with HLSPREAD and
with ETF, we estimate column 1, controlling for INST. Column 2 reveals that consistent with
H1, there exists a significantly positive association between changes in ETF ownership and
changes in HLSPREAD (coef. = 0.017, t-stat. = 2.51). The average HLSPREAD in our sample is
1.07%, thus these results show that a one percentage point increase in ETF ownership is
associated with an increase of 1.6% in the average HLSPREAD over the next year. The
coefficient on institutional ownership is slightly negative and not significantly different from 0
(coef. = -0.000, t-stat. = -0.58). These results are wholly consistent with the findings of Hamm
(2014) and suggest that her findings extend in our longer-horizon.

Results from estimating Eq. (2) are presented in table 3 and provide evidence on the
association between changes in of ETF ownership and another measure of changes in trading
costs. Column 1 reveals that ILLIQ_N has a strong positive association with changes in book-
to-market ratio (coef. = 0.172, t-stat. = 4.20) and changes in ILLIQ_D (coef. = 0.004, t-stat. =
5.38). The results in column 1 also reveal a strong positive relation between changes in ETF
ownership and changes in ILLIQ_N (coef. = 0.042, t-stat. = 2.55), suggesting that increases in
ETF ownership are associated with increases in the absolute firm returns. Column 2 of table 3
reveals that controlling for INST does not alter this observed relation. The average daily
absolute return in our sample is 2.1%, indicating that a one percentage point increase in ETF
ownership is associated with an increase of 2% in average daily absolute returns over the next
year. Taken together, the results presented in tables 2 and 3 provide strong evidence in support
for H1 that an increase in ETF ownership is accompanied by an increase in trading costs for
market participants.

IV.3 Testing H2: ETF ownership and the deterioration of pricing efficiency
IV.3a Synchronicity and FERC tests
Tables 4 and 5 present regression summary statistics from the estimation of Eqs. (4) and
(5), which are designed to test our second hypothesis using two proxies for the extent to which

26
stock returns reflect firm-specific information. Table 4 presents summary statistics from the
estimation of two versions of Eq. (4), which models the relation between changes in ETF
ownership and changes in annual stock return synchronicity. Column 1 reveals that the changes
in synchronicity, SYNCH, exhibit the expected relations with our control variables. Consistent
with prior research (e.g., Li et al. 2014), SYNCH is positively associated with increases in firm
size (coef. = 0.595, t-stat. = 8.78) and negatively associated with changes in systematic risk,
BETA (coef. = -.704, t-stat. = -14.85). Columns 1 and 2 reveal that changes in ETF ownership
are significantly positively related to changes in stock return synchronicity (coef. = .090, t-stat. =
3.70 and 3.67). As is shown in column 2, controlling for changes in institutional ownership does
not affect the positive association between ETF and SYNCH. Our results indicate that a one-
percentage point increase in ETF ownership is associated with approximately a 9 percentage
point increase in the average annual change in return synchronicity. This finding supports our
hypothesis that increases in ETF ownership are associated with a deterioration of pricing
efficiency for the underlying component securities.

Table 5 presents regression summary statistics from the estimations of Eqs. (5), (5a), and
(5b) which are designed to examine the relation between ETF ownership and the extent to which
current firm-level returns reflect future firm or macro-based and firm-specific earnings. In these
estimations, measures of ETF ownership range from 0 to 1 (rather than from 0 to 100) to be more
similar in ranges of magnitudes of the earnings and returns measures. Consistent with prior
literature, in both columns of Panel A, we observe a positive future earnings response
coefficient, FERC (coef. = 0.015, t-stat. = 4.80 and 4.32). Consistent with H2, column 1 of panel
A reveals that the interactions of current and future earnings with ETF ownership carry negative
coefficients that are significantly different from 0 (coef. = -3.662, t-stat. = -2.60 and coef. = -
0.212, t-stat. = -4.64). This suggests that, controlling for INSTt-1 and a host of other variables
prescribed by prior literature [LOSSt, ATGROWTHt, RETt+1, LN(MVE)t-1], firms with higher
levels of ETF ownership experience lower future earnings response coefficients. In other words,
firm-level returns of firms with higher levels of ETF ownership incorporate less future earnings-
related information. Column 2 of panel A presents summary statistics from the estimation of Eq.
(5a) in which the level of ETF ownership is split into lagged level of ETF ownership and most

27
recent period change in ETF ownership. The results in column 2 provide further support for H2
by showing that the coefficients on interactions of current and future earnings with changes in
ETF ownership are also significantly negative (coef. = -3.636, t-stat. = -2.68 and coef. = -0.195,
t-stat. = -2.07). This suggests that firms experiencing a one-percentage point increase in ETF
ownership also experience a 14% reduction in the average magnitude of their future earnings
response coefficients.

Taken together, the results presented in tables 4 and 5 indicate that an increase in ETF
ownership is associated with increase in the co-movement of firm-level stock returns with
market and related-industry stock returns, and with a decline in the predictive power of current
firm-level stock returns for future firm earnings. These two findings support our second
hypothesis that stock prices of firms with high ETF ownership are impounding less firm-specific
information.

IV.3b Alternative earnings response tests

In a contemporaneous study, Glosten, Nallareddy, and Zou (2016; hereafter GNZ)
explore the impact of ETF trading activity on the response of returns to contemporaneous
earnings news. Using same-quarter changes in ETF ownership as a proxy for ETF trading
activity, they demonstrate that ETF trading is associated with a stronger association of returns to
contemporaneous earnings. They further document that the effect is concentrated in the
association of returns to the systematic (or macro-based) component of earnings news. Their
overall conclusion from these findings is that ETF trading improves a stocks informational
efficiency.
Given the difference in the conclusions of the GNZ study relative to our own, we take
several steps to reconcile their findings with ours. The first key difference between their setting
and ours is rooted in the time lag between measurement of changes in ETF ownership, returns,
and firm earnings. Because GNZs focus is on understanding the impact of contemporaneous
ETF trading, they measure changes in ETF ownership and returns over the exact same quarter.
In contrast, we are interested in understanding the long-run implications of increases in ETF

28
ownership on pricing efficiency, so we measure levels and changes of ETF ownership prior to
the start of the returns measurement window. To verify that this shift in ETF measurement
window is a key driver of the differences between our results and those of GNZ, we estimate Eq.
(5b) while measuring changes in ETF ownership and earnings contemporaneously with returns,
as GNZ does.
Column 1 of table 5, panel B presents the results of this estimation. These results show
that the coefficients on the variables of interest (the interaction of ETF with contemporaneous
aggregate and firm-specific earnings) are positive, consistent with the findings reported by GNZ.
To ensure that the effect documented by GNZ does not subsume those reported in our FERC
analyses, we also estimate Eq. (5b) including both the GNZ measurement of ETF and our
original measurement of ETF. The summary statistics from this estimation are presented in
column 2 of table 5, panel B. This test shows that all our prior findings on a reduction in FERCs
with increased ETF ownership continue to hold, after controlling for the GNZ variables.
Specifically, all eight of the interaction terms between ETF ownership and future earnings
measures have negative coefficients. In particular, the coefficient of lagged changes in ETF
ownership with future firm-specific earnings is significantly negative (coef. = -0.172, t-stat. = -
3.26), as is the interaction of the lagged level of ETF ownership with future firm-specific
earnings (coef. = -0.136, t-stat. = -2.02). These results support our hypothesis that increases in
ETF ownership lead to slower incorporation of firm-specific earnings information into stock
prices.
The analyses presented in table 5, panel B show the importance of lagging the changes in
ETF ownership variable, which is a key difference between our study and GNZ. However, there
are other research design differences that might have contributed to the differences in results
(such as annual vs. quarterly data, the measurement window for future earnings, the choice of
control variables, and their use of seasonally adjusted earnings). To address these differences
more completely, we re-estimate the main results from GNZs Eq. (3) following their research
design and sample construction.
The summary statistics from this estimation are presented in column I of table 6. Their
main variable of interest is the interaction of the contemporaneous quarterly change in ETF

29
ownership (ETFt) with current period seasonally adjusted earnings (SEARNt). For firm i in
quarter t, SEARNit, seasonally adjusted earnings news, is defined as the difference between
quarter t and quarter t-4 earnings before extraordinary items, scaled by stock price at the
beginning of quarter t. Consistent with the results reported by GNZ, our estimate of the
coefficient on the interaction ETFt SEARNit is positive and significantly different from zero
(coef = 0.438, t-stat. = 2.458).
Having successfully replicated the results reported by GNZ, we further explore how
research design modifications affect the gap between their results and ours. The estimates in
columns II through VII of table 6 are from re-estimations of GNZs Eq. (3) with modifications to
the measurement windows of ETF and SEARN. Specifically, in column II we hold all other
aspects of the research design constant (and consistent with GNZ), but allow for the
measurement of ETF to take place prior to the return measurement window rather than in the
same quarter as the stock returns. In other words, we shift from ETFt to ETFt-1. Making this
shift causes the magnitude of the coefficient on the interaction of ETFt-1 with SEARN to decline
(coef. = 0.386 versus 0.438) and also causes the statistical significance to fall (t-stat. = 1.729
versus 2.458).
The next modification we examine is the effect of measuring annual changes in ETF
ownership rather than quarterly. We accomplish this by summing quarterly changes over the
prior four quarters. We use this four-quarter sum of ETF ownership changes (ETFSUM t-1 to t-4)
instead of the contemporaneous ETF ownership change in the estimation results presented in
column III of table 6. The results in column III reveal that measuring ETF changes annually
notably changes the inferences of the test, as the interaction of ETFSUM t-1 to t-4 with SEARN is
positive (coef = .101) but not significantly different from zero (t-stat. = 0.767).
In columns IV through VII we maintain use of the four-quarter sum of quarterly ETF
ownership changes (ETFSUM t-1 to t-4) as an annual measure of changes in ETF ownership. The
variation in columns IV through VII arises from shifting forward the measurement of SEARN. In
column IV (V, VI), SEARN is defined as the quarterly earnings for quarter t+1 (t+2, t+3) relative
to the returns measurement window. In each iteration of the estimation, the coefficient on the
interaction of ETFSUM t-1 to t-4 with SEARN grows increasingly negative. For example, Column

30
VI shows that when examining three-quarter-ahead earnings, the interaction of ETFSUM t-1 to t-4
with SEARNt+3 bears a significantly negative coefficient (coef. = -0.568, t-stat. = -1.809). This
negative interaction effect is consistent with our second hypothesis.
In column VII we sum the quarterly earnings for quarters t through t+3 to approximate an annual
version of future earnings (SEARNSUM t to t+3). Column VII of Table 6 presents estimations where
the combined modifications to the measurement of ETF ownership changes and earnings bring
the overall specification close to our main FERC test, Eq. (5). Specifically, we use SEARNSUM t to
t+3 as an approximation of future annual earnings and ETFSUM t-1 to t-4 as an approximation of
annual change in ETF ownership prior to the returns measurement window. The results in
column VII further support our second hypothesis; the coefficient on the interaction of ETFSUM
t-1 to t-4 with SEARNSUM t to t+3 is -0.198 (t-stat. = -1.848). This indicates that with larger increases
in ETF ownership over the past year, current returns capture less information about firm earnings
over the next year.

IV.3c Analyst coverage tests

Table 7 presents regression summary statistics from the estimation of Eq. (7), which is
designed to examine the effect of changes in ETF ownership on analyst coverage. The signs on
the control variables are largely consistent with those reported in prior literature. For example,
Column 1 shows that changes in analyst coverage, ANALYST, are higher among firms with
larger increases in research and development expenses (coef. = 1.965, t-stat. = 2.79), and firms
with larger increases in intangible assets (coef. = 1.386, t-stat. = 3.77). In columns I and II the
coefficients on ETF are positive but not significantly different from zero (coef. = 0.042 and
0.017, t-stat. = 1.24 and 0.46). These results suggest that increases in ETF ownership in over
year t-1 have no significant effect on analyst coverage. However, the coefficient on INST
presented in column II is positive and highly significant (coef. = 0.013, t-stat. = 9.06), suggesting
that an increase in institutional ownership over year t-1 does tend to increase analyst coverage in
year t.
To explore the possibility that ETF ownership might have a more long-run effect on
analyst coverage, we include lagged level of ETF ownership as an additional explanatory

31
variable in the estimation of results presented in columns III and IV. The results show that the
level of ETF ownership from year t-2 exhibits a strong negative relation with changes in analyst
coverage in year t. For example, column IV shows that higher ETF ownership is associated with
lower analyst coverage (coef. = -0.025, t-stat. = -3.25), after controlling for both the level and the
change in lagged institutional ownership.

In sum, over shorter windows we find no reliable evidence that links changes in ETF
ownership to changes in the number of analysts covering a firm. Over longer horizons, our
results do suggest that increased ETF ownership is associated with lower analyst coverage.
However, we hasten to point out that as the time gap between the measurement of ETF
ownership and analyst coverage increases, so does the likelihood that some other confounding
factor is at work. Thus we think that our results on the consequences of ETF ownership on
analyst coverage should be interpreted cautiously. At best, our findings are consistent with the
idea that analysts slowly respond to changes in the information environment associated with
changes in ETF ownership.

V. Summary and concluding remarks

In this study, we use changes in ETF ownership to examine the economic linkages
between the market for firm-specific information, the market for individual securities, and the
role of uninformed traders. The market for ETFs has grown dramatically in the past decade and
ETFs now constitute close to 30% of the daily value traded in US exchanges. By focusing on the
natural growth of exchange-traded funds over the past decade, we study how changes in the
composition of a firms investor base impacts its share pricing efficiency.

Prior theoretical work offers two predictions on the possible impacts of ETF ownership.
First, a number of studies in the market microstructure literature suggest that trading associated
with the ETF-arbitrage mechanism can improve intraday price discovery for the underlying
stocks (Hasbrouck 2003, Yu 2005, Chen and Strother 2008, Fang and Sanger 2012, and Ivanov
et al. 2013). This line of inquiry suggests that increased ETF ownership can lead to improved
pricing efficiency in the underlying securities, particularly in the short-run.

32
 On the other hand, the noisy rational expectations (NRE) literature suggests a possible
negative relation between ETF ownership and pricing efficiency. A number of models in this
literature (Grossman and Stiglitz 1980, Hellwig 1980, Admati 1985, Diamond and Verrecchia
1981, Verrecchia 1982, and Kyle 1985, 1989) predict that pricing efficiency will be a function of
the information costs faced by agents seeking to profit from becoming informed about the asset.
To the extent that a migration of uninformed investors away from underlying component
securities increases their information costs, these models predict that increased ETF ownership
will lead to a decline in pricing efficiency, particularly in the long-run.

Our study examines, and provides support for, both predictions. We first demonstrate
that an increase in ETF ownership is associated with an increase in firms trading costs. This is
consistent with the idea of uninformed traders exiting the market of the underlying security in
favor of the ETF. Next, we find that increases in ETF ownership are associated with increases
in stock return synchronicity, decreases in future earnings response coefficients (FERCs), and
decline in the number of analysts covering the firm. These findings are consistent with the idea
that as uninformed traders exit the market for component securities and trading costs for these
securities rise, their pricing efficiency declines.

Our main results link ETF ownership changes to subsequent changes in FERC. Consistent
with the microstructure literature and Glosten, Nallareddy, and Zou (2016), we find a positive
contemporaneous relation between increases in ETF ownership and the markets ability to
incorporate same-quarter earnings (i.e., higher ERCs).. More importantly, we go a step further
and show that this positive relation holds only when all three variables (stock returns, ETF
changes, and earnings) are measured in the same quarter. As the time lag between ETF changes
and future earnings is increased, the relation turns negative. This negative relation becomes
stronger as we increase the time lag between past ETF changes and current period returns. In
other words, while same-quarter ETF trading seems to improve pricing efficiency, the more
salient result over the longer run is that increases in ETF ownership lead to a deterioration in
pricing efficiency for the underlying securities. These findings are largely consistent with
predictions from the NRE literature.

33
 We also provide some evidence on the differential impact of changes in ETF ownership on
the incorporation of macro-based versus firm-specific components of earnings news. GNZ
find a positive relation between ETF changes and pricing efficiency, and show the effect is
primarily driven by better price integration of macro-based earnings. We replicate their main
findings and demonstrate that while ETF trading may improve pricing discovery for same-
quarter macro-based earnings, over the longer term (beginning with the next quarter), increases
in ETF ownership actually lead to lower FERCs, for both macro-based and firm-specific
components of earnings news.

Our findings contribute to a growing literature on the economic consequences of basket or

index-linked products. The rapid increase in index-linked products in recent years has attracted
the attention of investors, regulators, and financial researchers. Adopting key insights from
information economics, we present empirical evidence on how incentives in the market for
information can affect pricing in the market for the underlying securities. Our results suggest
that ETF ownership can lead to increased trading costs for market participants, with further
consequences for the amount of firm-specific information that is incorporated into stock prices.

These findings highlight the link between information costs and market pricing efficiency.
Lee and So (2015) argue that the study of market efficiency involves the analysis of a joint
equilibrium in which supply must equal demand in the market for information about the
underlying security, as well as in the market for the security itself. In the same spirit, Pedersen
(2015) argues that financial markets are efficiently inefficient that is, markets are inefficient
enough that money managers can be compensated for their costs through the profits of their
trading strategies, and efficient enough that the profits after costs do not encourage additional
active investing. Our study provides support for this view of market efficiency, and our main
findings bring into sharp relief the close relationship between the market for stocks and the
market for information about these stocks.

It is useful to remind ourselves of an important caveat imposed by our research design.

While we have demonstrated an association between lagged changes in ETF ownership and
changes in firms trading costs and pricing efficiency, this association alone does not imply

34
causality. It is possible that both the changes in ETF ownership and the subsequent changes in
other firm characteristics are due to another, as yet unidentified, latent variable. We cannot think
of a good candidate variable, but our inability to do so does not preclude its existence. As a
minimum, we have documented a set of empirical findings that are broadly consistent with an
information-based explanation, which future researchers seeking an alternative explanation
should address.

It is also important to interpret our findings in context. Our evidence suggests the growth of
ETFs may have (unintended) long-run consequences for the pricing efficiency of the underlying
securities. However, ETFs are clearly an important development in financial markets, which
have brought many well-documented benefits to investors. We have not conducted a welfare
analysis and our findings should not be construed an indictment against these funds. Rather, we
view these findings as yet another reminder that the informational efficiency of financial markets
is not, after all, a free good.

35
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40
Appendix A: Variable Definitions

Variable: Definition
ANALYSTit = The number of unique analysts in I/B/E/S that provide forecasts of year t
earnings for firm i
ATGROWTHit = Growth in assets for firm i from year t-1 to year t.
BETAit = The coefficient from the firm-year estimation of the model

( ) = + +

where ( ) is firm is return less the risk-free rate on day d and

(MKT-Rf)d is the value-weighted market return less the risk-free rate on
day d. The model is estimated using daily returns over the trading days in
the year t, with a minimum of 150 trading days.
BTMit = The book to market ratio of firm i at the end of year t
EARNit = Earnings before extraordinary items for firm i in year t scaled by market
value of equity
EARNAGGit = The fitted value from the firm-year estimation of the model
= + +
where EARNMKTt is the size-weighted average of year t earnings before
extraordinary items for all firms with available earnings information in
Compustat and EARNINDt is the size-weighted average of year t earnings
before extraordinary items for all firms with the same Fama-French 48
industry classification.
EARNFIRMit = The residual value from the firm-year estimation of the model
= + +
where EARNMKTt is the size-weighted average of year t earnings before
extraordinary items for all firms with available earnings information in
Compustat and EARNINDt is the size-weighted average of year t earnings
before extraordinary items for all firms with the same Fama-French 48
industry classification.
The percentage of firm is common shares outstanding held by ETFs at
ETFit = the end of year t
HLSPREADit = The Corwin and Schultz (2012) measure of bid-ask spread for firm i in
year t

ILLIQ_Nit = The average over year t of absolute daily equity returns for firm i (the
numerator of the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio)
ILLIQ_Dit = The average over year t of dollar volume for firm i (the denominator of
the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio)

INSTit = The percentage of firm is common shares outstanding held by

institutions at the end of year t

41
INTAN_Fit = The ratio of intangible assets to total assets for firm i in year t

LN(MVE) it = The natural logarithm of firm is market value of equity at the end of year
t

LOSSit = Indicator variable equaling one if firm i experienced a loss (defined as

EARN < 0) in year t
MOMit = Cumulative firm i stock returns for months -12 to -6 relative to the year t
end date.
MTBit = The ratio of market value of equity to book value of equity for firm i at
the end of quarter t
RD_Fit = The ratio of research and development expenses to total operating
expenses for firm i in year t
RETit = The annual return for firm i in year t

SEARNit = Seasonally adjusted quarterly earnings, defined as

where EARNit is earnings before extraordinary items for firm i in quarter t

and Pt-1 is firm is stock price at the end of quarter t-1
SKEWit = The skewness of firm is daily returns over year t

SLOSSit = Indicator variable equaling one if SEARNit < 0 in quarter t

STDit = Standard deviation of firm is earnings per share excluding extraordinary

items over the 20 quarters prior to quarter t
STD(RET) it = The standard deviation of firm is daily returns over year t

A logarithmic transformation of defined as , is

SYNCHit =
estimated separately for each firm-year as described in section III.

TURNit = The ratio of the average number of firm is shares traded in year t to firm
is total common shares outstanding in year t
= The annual change operator

= The quarterly change operator

42
Appendix B: Sample ETFs ranked by assets under management
This appendix provides a list of the 10 largest ETFs in our sample, ranked using the average
assets under management (AUM). Each year we compute AUM as of the last trading day of the
calendar year.

Average AUM
Rank Ticker Fund name
(in millions)
1 SPY SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF $86,971.45
2 IVV iShares Core S&P 500 ETF $21,915.20
3 VTI Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF $14,140.61
4 IWM iShares Russell 2000 ETF $12,361.84
5 IWF iShares Russell 1000 Growth Index ETF $10,312.08
6 IWD iShares Russell 1000 Value Index ETF $8,965.49
7 DIA SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF $8,428.39
8 IJH iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF $7,200.01
9 VOO Vanguard S&P 500 ETF $6,838.45
10 MDY Spdr S&P Midcap 400 ETF $6,783.54

43
Figure 1: ETF ownership by year
This chart plots, by fiscal year, the average percentage of shares outstanding held by ETFs for
firms in our sample. The horizontal axis indicates the year and the vertical axis indicates the
magnitude of ETF ownership. Our methodology for calculating ETF ownership is outlined in
Section IV of the paper.

ETF ownership by year: 2000 to 2014

6%

5%

4%

3%

2%

1%

0%
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

44
 Figure 2: Sample construction timeline
Panel A: Annual sample
HLSPREAD/ILLIQ_N/SYNCH(t)
measurement window

ETF(t-1) window
RET(t) window

End Y(t-2) End Y(t-1) End Y(t) End Y(t+1)

-2 -1 0 1
EARN(t+1)
ETF/INST (t-2) ETF/INST(t-1) ETF/INST(t)
report date
report date report date Panel B: report date Quarterly
sample for GNZ replication EARN(t+1) window
TURN/STD(RET)(t-1)
measurement window

RET(t) and EARN(t) window

End Q(t-1) End Q(t) End Q(t+1)

-1 0 1
ETF/INST(t-1) ETF/INST(t)
report date report date
ETF(t) window

45
Table 1: Sample Description
Panel A: Univariate statistics
This panel presents univariate statistics for the key variables in our sample. Variable definitions are
provided in Appendix A.

N MEAN SD Q1 Q2 Q3
ANALYST 29562 7.963 6.987 3 6 11
ATGROWTH 29970 22.835 59.931 -1.162 12.41 31.674
EARN 29970 -0.001 0.271 0.012 0.047 0.069
ETF 39863 3.306 2.972 1.223 2.52 4.707
INST 39863 57.775 31.256 30.833 62.497 85.46
LN(MVE) 39863 13.021 2.013 11.543 12.937 14.354
LOSS 29970 0.218 0.413 0 0 0
RET 29970 0.206 0.612 -0.14 0.113 0.401
ANALYST 29562 0.177 2.627 -1 0 1
BETA 32536 0.036 0.418 -0.196 0.035 0.267
BTM 39863 0.011 0.394 -0.117 0 0.123
ETF 39863 0.48 1.091 -0.001 0.277 0.879
HLSPREAD 39863 -0.022 0.445 -0.231 -0.042 0.137
ILLIQ_D 39863 1.741 15.661 -0.326 0.018 1.454
ILLIQ_N 39863 -0.083 0.801 -0.501 -0.118 0.238
INST 39863 2.64 11.579 -2.583 1.09 6.163
LN(MVE) 39863 0.054 0.501 -0.189 0.08 0.327
SKEW 32536 -0.026 1.423 -0.627 -0.032 0.568
STD(RET) 39863 -1.794 30.486 -15.074 -1.876 11.24
SYNCH 32536 0.053 1.896 -0.625 0.047 0.725
TURN 39863 -0.065 5.437 -1.535 -0.018 1.438

Panel B: Correlation matrix for level variables

This panel presents correlation coefficients for the levels of key variables in our sample. Variable
definitions are provided in Appendix A. Pearson (Spearman) coefficients are presented above (below) the
diagonal.
ETF HLSPREAD ILLIQ_N LN(MVE) BTM TURN SYNCH
ETF 1.000 -0.141 -0.107 0.219 0.010 0.171 0.350
HLSPREAD -0.129 1.000 0.896 -0.451 0.158 0.136 -0.113
ILLIQ_N -0.110 0.908 1.000 -0.374 0.163 0.244 -0.051
LN(MVE) 0.326 -0.501 -0.417 1.000 -0.276 0.185 0.524
BTM -0.010 0.102 0.080 -0.370 1.000 -0.076 -0.106
TURN 0.403 0.143 0.232 0.389 -0.230 1.000 0.158
SYNCH 0.448 -0.106 -0.047 0.533 -0.056 0.240 1.000

46
Panel C: Correlation matrix for change variables
This panel presents correlation coefficients for the changes of key variables in our sample. Variable
definitions are provided in Appendix A. Pearson (Spearman) coefficients are presented above (below) the
diagonal.
ETF HLSPREAD ILLIQ_N LN(MVE) BTM TURN SYNCH
ETF 1.000 0.171 0.193 -0.005 0.022 0.070 0.080
HLSPREAD 0.166 1.000 0.841 -0.102 0.138 0.118 0.142
ILLIQ_N 0.177 0.790 1.000 -0.043 0.104 0.092 0.169
LN(MVE) -0.016 -0.033 0.021 1.000 -0.722 0.096 0.148
BTM 0.026 0.043 -0.011 -0.792 1.000 -0.007 -0.114
TURN 0.067 0.132 0.091 0.051 -0.004 1.000 0.083
SYNCH 0.112 0.245 0.285 0.164 -0.121 0.078 1.000

47
Table 2: Regressions of bid-ask spread on ETF ownership
This table presents regression summary statistics from the below regression of changes in bid-ask spread
(HLSPREAD) on changes in ETF ownership (ETF). t-statistics based on standard errors double
clustered by firm and year are shown in parentheses. See Appendix A for variable descriptions. ***, **,
and * denote significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-sided test.

= + + + + +

Y = HLSPREADt
Pred. I II
ETFt-1 + 0.016 ** 0.017 **
(2.41) (2.51)
INST t-1 -0.0002
(-0.58)
LN(MVE)t-1 -0.044 * -0.043
(-1.67) (-1.64)
BTMt-1 0.051 ** 0.051 **
(2.42) (2.43)
TURNt-1 0.000 0.001
(0.55) (0.61)
STD(RET)t-1 0.001 * 0.001 *
(1.86) (1.85)

Year FE YES YES

Industry FE YES YES

N 39863 39863
Adj. R-Square 0.304 0.304

48
Table 3: Regressions of a measure of illiquidity (ILLIQ_N) on ETF ownership
This table presents regression summary statistics from the below regression of changes in daily average
absolute returns (ILLIQ_N) on changes in ETF ownership (ETF). t-statistics based on standard errors
double clustered by firm and year are shown in parentheses. See Appendix A for variable descriptions.
***, **, and * denote significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-sided test.

_ = + + _ + + + +

Y = ILLIQ_Nt
Pred. I II
ETFt-1 + 0.042 ** 0.043 **
(2.55) (2.57)
INSTt-1 -0.0004
(-0.61)
LN(MVE)t-1 -0.015 -0.015
(-1.55) (-1.55)
BTM t-1 0.172 *** 0.171 ***
(4.20) (4.25)
ILLIQ_Dt 0.004 *** 0.004 ***
(5.38) (5.44)

Year FE YES YES

Industry FE YES YES

N 39863 39863
Adj. R-Square 0.371 0.371

49
Table 4: Regressions of stock return synchronicity (SYNCH) on ETF ownership
This table presents regression summary statistics from the below regressions of changes in stock return
synchronicity (SYNCH) on changes in ETF ownership (ETF). t-statistics based on standard errors
double clustered by firm and year are shown in parentheses. See Appendix A for variable descriptions.
***, **, and * denote significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-sided test.

= + + + + +

Y = SYNCHt
Pred. I II
ETFt-1 + 0.090 *** 0.090 ***
(3.70) (3.67)
INST t-1 0.0002
(0.21)
LN(MVE) t-1 0.595 *** 0.593 ***
(8.78) (9.82)
BTM t-1 -0.093 -0.094 *
(-1.62) (-1.70)
TURN t-1 0.001 0.001
(1.11) (1.12)
SKEWt-1 0.004 0.004
(0.41) (0.41)
BETAt-1 -0.704 *** -0.704 ***
(-14.85) (-14.58)

Year FE YES YES

Industry FE YES YES

N 32536 32536
Adj. R-Square 0.086 0.086

50
Table 5: Regressions of current returns on future earnings and ETF ownership
Panel A: Total earnings
This table presents regression summary statistics of regressions of current annual stock returns (RETt) on
total future earnings (EARNt+1), the lagged level of ETF ownership (ETFt-1) and lagged changes in ETF
ownership (ETFt-1). t-statistics based on standard errors double clustered by year and firm are shown in
parentheses. See Appendix A for variable descriptions. ***, **, and * denote significance at the 0.01,
0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-sided test.

Y = RETt

Variable type Pred I II

EARNt-1 Main effect -0.435 *** -0.438 ***
(-6.90) (-6.14)
EARN Main effect 0.282 *** 0.284 ***
(3.76) (3.81)
EARNt+1 Main effect 0.015 *** 0.015 ***
(4.80) (4.32)
ETFt-1 Main effect -0.170
(-0.50)
ETFt-1 Main effect -0.768 **
(-2.06)
ETFt-2 Main effect 0.070
(0.17)
ETF t-1 EARN t-1 Interaction 0.594
(0.68)
ETFt-1 EARNt Interaction -3.662 ***
(-2.60)
ETFt-1 EARNt+1 Interaction -0.212 ***
(-4.64)

ETFt-1 EARN t-1 Interaction 0.194

(0.37)
ETFt-1 EARN t Interaction -3.636 ***
(-2.68)
ETFt-1 EARN t+1 Interaction -0.195 **
(-2.07)

ETFt-2 EARN t-1 Interaction 0.797

(0.64)
ETFt-2 EARNt Interaction -3.739 **
(-2.23)
ETFt-2 EARNt+1 Interaction -0.210 ***
(-4.48)

51
INST t-1 Control -0.157 *** -0.160 ***
(-3.74) (-3.79)
LN(MVE) t-1 Control 0.011 * 0.010 *
(1.87) (1.82)
LOSS t Control -0.213 *** -0.212 ***
(-8.61) (-8.61)
ATGROWTH t Control 0.002 *** 0.002 ***
(9.73) (9.76)
RET t+1 Control -0.026 -0.026
(-0.62) (-0.61)

Year FE YES YES

Industry FE YES YES

N 29970 29970
Adj R-Square 0.350 0.351

52
Panel B: Earnings components
This table presents regression summary statistics of regressions of current annual stock returns (RETt) on
future aggregate and firm-specific earnings (EARNAGGt+1 and EARNFIRMt+1), the lagged level of ETF
ownership (ETFt-1) and lagged changes in ETF ownership (ETFt-1). Main effects variables include
ETFt-1; ETFt-1; and lagged, current, and future levels of EARNAGG and EARNFIRM. Control variables
include INST t-1, LN(MVE) t-1, ATGROWTHt , LOSSt , and RETt+1. t-statistics based on standard errors
double clustered by year and firm are shown in parentheses. See Appendix A for variable descriptions.
***, **, and * denote significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-sided test.

Y = RETt
Pred. I II
ETFt EARNAGGt + 0.868 2.765 ***
(0.69) (4.25)
ETFt EARNFIRMt 0.888 2.921 ***
(0.80) (4.46)
ETFt-1 EARNAGGt-1 1.660
(1.40)
ETFt-1 EARNFIRMt-1 -0.577
(-0.66)
ETFt-1 EARNAGGt -3.670 ***
(-2.72)
ETFt-1 EARNFIRMt -1.874 *
(-1.67)
ETFt-1 EARNAGGt+1 -0.104
(-0.69)
ETFt-1 EARNFIRMt+1 -0.172 ***
(-3.26)
ETFt-2 EARNAGGt-1 2.708
(1.53)
ETFt-2 EARNFIRMt-1 0.286
(0.18)
ETFt-2 EARNAGGt -6.387 ***
(-6.19)
ETFt-2 EARNFIRMt -4.255 ***
(-4.16)
ETFt-2 EARNAGGt+1 -0.097
(-0.94)
ETFt-2 EARNFIRMt+1 -0.136 **
(-2.02)
Year and industry FE YES YES
Main effects included YES YES
Controls included YES YES
N 29970 29970
Adj. R-Square 0.373 0.384

53
Table 6: Replication and reconciliation of Glosten et al. (2016; GNZ) results
This table presents summary statistics for regressions of quarter t returns on quarterly seasonally-adjusted earnings measures (earn) and quarterly
ETF ownership changes (etfchange) from varying periods. t-statistics based on standard errors double clustered by year and firm are shown in
parentheses. Control variables include an intercept, a loss indicator (SLOSS t), lagged market-to-book ratio (MTB t-1), lagged standard deviation of
earnings (STD t-1), lagged level of ETF ownership (ETF t-1), lagged firm size (LN(MVE) t-1), and the interaction of earnings with the loss indicator
(earn SLOSS). See Appendix A for variable descriptions. ***, **, and * denote significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-
sided test.
Y = Quarter t returns
Varying ETF change period Varying earnings period
I II III IV V VI VII
ETFt 5.344***
(6.535)
Alternative
ETFt-1 0.083
measures of
(0.123)
etfchange
ETFSUM t-1 to t-4 -1.186* -1.034 -1.092 -1.228* -0.948
(-1.660) (-1.508) (-1.574) (-1.758) (-1.394)
SEARNt 0.488** 0.564** 0.730***
(2.322) (2.436) (2.926)
SEARNt+1 1.449***
(2.885)
Alternative
SEARNt+2 1.504***
measures of
(3.337)
earn
SEARNt+3 1.081***
(2.947)
SEARNSUM t to t+3 0.526***
(3.089)
earn etfchange 0.438** 0.386* 0.101 -0.418 -0.376 -0.568* -0.198*
(2.458) (1.729) (0.767) (-1.494) (-1.466) (-1.809) (-1.848)

Controls YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

Obs 106953 101495 101495 101483 101483 101483 101483
Adj R-Square 0.0295 0.0282 0.0281 0.0407 0.0407 0.0193 0.0451

54
Table 7: Regressions of analyst coverage on ETF ownership
This table presents summary statistics for regressions of changes in analyst coverage (ANALYST) on changes in ETF ownership (ETF). t-
statistics based on standard errors double clustered by firm and year are shown in parentheses. See Appendix A for variable descriptions. ***, **,
and * denote significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 levels, based on a two-sided test.

Y = ANALYSTt Pred. I II III IV

ETFt-1 0.042 0.017 0.029 0.008
(1.24) (0.46) (0.87) (0.23)
ETFt-2 -0.033 *** -0.025 ***
(-4.52) (-3.25)
INSTt-1 0.013 *** 0.012 ***
(9.06) (8.03)
INST t-2 0.000
(-0.35)
LN(MVE) t-1 0.056 0.060 0.065 0.066
(0.98) (1.05) (1.11) (1.15)
BTM t-1 -0.169 ** -0.143 * -0.171 ** -0.146 *
(-1.96) (-1.72) (-1.97) (-1.74)
TURN t-1 0.014 *** 0.008 * 0.013 *** 0.008 *
(3.09) (1.94) (2.95) (1.89)
STD(RET) t-1 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.001
(0.20) (1.17) (0.36) (1.25)
INTAN_Ft-1 1.386 *** 1.344 *** 1.382 *** 1.342 ***
(3.77) (3.66) (3.75) (3.64)
RD_Ft-1 1.965 *** 2.011 *** 1.977 *** 2.018 ***
(2.79) (2.85) (2.81) (2.86)
MOM t-1 0.009 *** 0.009 *** 0.009 *** 0.009 ***
(7.68) (7.44) (7.70) (7.48)
Year and industry FE YES YES YES YES
N 29562 29562 29562 29562
Adj. R-Square 0.038 0.041 0.039 0.042

55